"A Generous Service"
Interview with Alois Treindlby Markus Jehle

Markus Jehle:
Astrodienst Zürich is the largest astrological
Internet service worldwide. How did this wide
range of services come about? What was the motivation behind
it?

Alois Treindl:
The Astrodienst website (www.astro.com) was first launched
in August 1996, we published our extensive
Astrodienst catalogue online.
In September, we added the first interactive service:
the birth place and time zone atlas with more than 250'000
cities
and all time zones and daylight saving times of the world.
This atlas also offered the possibility to calculate
simple charts with the data entered. The website was available
in two languages right
from
the
start: German and English. This was in tune with the
Astrodienst's international orientation.
Within a short time we managed to reach a wide public, mainly
in astrological circles.

In the following years, we extended the selection of free
online charts and calculations considerably. Astrodienst, having
offered
astrological computer services since 1980, possesses a treasure
chest of astrological software with many specialised calculations
and charts for most areas, schools and methods of astrology.
In the years 1980 to 1987, astrological charts and calculations
were the company's only field of activity. Our
customers were professional and amateur astrologers, as well
as astrology
schools.

Only in 1987 we started offering astrological
interpretations, which were developed under the
trademark of Astro*Intelligence, together with Liz
Greene and Robert Hand. The mere
calculation service has since then experienced a relative decline
due to
the wide distribution of personal computers and
astro software on many astrologers' desks - even so,
we sell more chart drawings today (!) than in 1983, for example.

"It
made me happy to able to do something for so
many people. Until today, this has been the main driving force
behind our commitment to the website. This is true for
Astrodienst as a company as well as for myself as webmaster
and main software developer."

The Internet offered us a wonderful opportunity to share this
wealth of astrological software and high quality expertise
with a wider public. During this phase, it was the pure pleasure
of playing with these new possibilities and the enthusiasm
we encountered from our web users that motivated us
to take up all this work. It made me happy to able to do
something for so
many people. Until today, this has been the main driving force
behind our commitment to the website. This is true for
Astrodienst as a company as well as for myself as webmaster
and main software developer.

In 1999, we added the first free interpretation, the personal
Daily Horoscope, which soon became very popular, and which
has remained the favourite feature of most users until today.
More free short reports followed in 2000, and in the same year,
we developed the interactive AstroClick horoscopes, which allow
you to click on any feature of the chart to get its interpretation.
By the way, AstroClick has
become much less popular than we (as astrologers) had expected.
I think that many visitors are quite overwhelmed by the sight
of such a "complex" chart
drawing, and instead of clicking on the chart, they react as
if they
saw a complex mathematical formula: they rush off, thinking
'this is not for me'.

M.J.: How much work is involved in your services?

Alois Treindl:
Our second programmer and I have spent most
of our working hours since 1996 on the development of the
website and on becoming more familiar with the Internet
and
the possibilities it offers.
Since 2000, there are four members in the webteam who
are solely in charge of the website. In addition to our
permanent
staff, we cooperate with external translators,
as our website
is
now
available
in
seven languages.

M.J.: How many visitors does astro.com have per day? What are
the most popular services?

Alois Treindl:
In December 1997, we had 2500 visitors per day. In December
2000, there were 25'000 daily, and today we count between
80 and 85'000 on weekdays, and about 55'000 at the weekend
or on bank holidays. Of these, about 25% use the website
in German, 63% in English, and the other 12% are spread
equally between Italian, French, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese.
These languages have only been online
for a relatively short time.

This growth mainly results from word-of-mouth recommendation.
If a visitor likes what she sees, she tells her friends about
it. We have the advantage that astro.com is easy to remember
- in every language.
The most popular service by far is the Personal Daily
Horoscope which makes up almost half of our
page views. The other free
horoscopes make about 45% of the page views. And
the rest goes to our extensive section "Understanding
Astrology"
with introductions, specialised articles, etc.

"It
is a fact that from a thousand visitors about 998
exclusively
use our free services. Only comparatively
few order a product or a subscription."

M.J.: For many years, the services on astro.com were free for
users. In the meantime, you charge a (small) fee for some
of them. Why did you decide to take this step?

Alois Treindl:
Except for our shop, where we sell our sophisticated Astro*Intelligence
interpretations, most of our services on the website are
free of charge. Only the Personal Daily Horoscope has an
'extended
mode'
which is only accessible for
subscribers. We introduced the Extended Daily Horoscope
in June 2002. It gives access to personal transit interpretations
for a any day within a four-year time span, not only for
yesterday, today and tomorrow. The main content of the Daily
Horoscope is still free,
that is the computer-selected transit for today, yesterday,
and tomorrow. However, we have recently
moved the additional transit interpretations from the free
section to the subscriber area.

The reason is simple: The current economic recession which
concerns most parts of the world has not gone unnoticed by
Astrodienst. In order to keep the
services going - for which we work with great enthusiasm,
we need more income. We have actually achieved quite
good results with this move: the additional income from the
Extended Daily Horoscope subscriptions has nearly compensated
for
the deficit in our cost of operation, and we can now take a
calmer look at our annual balance sheet than in 2001 and
2002.

M.J.: Some of the reactions were quite harsh and controversial.
Did this surprise you? Which of the arguments can you accept,
which ones do you reject? Which reactions did you consider
wrong and exaggerated?

Alois Treindl:
It is probably best to look at the feedback
archive of May and
the beginning of June 2003
on www.astro.com to get an impression of the kind of feedback
we received. This is a live documentation of the reactions
and our replies.
The harshness of the reactions did indeed take us by surprise.
But then we understood what was going on. Have you ever taken
away a single one of a child's ten or more toys in the playground?
Try this with a few thousand children. This does not mean that
the majority of our users react like toddlers
whose comforter is taken away, but there are still quite
a few of those. And if they appear in large numbers, their
outcry overrules the rest of the voices fairly quickly.

We
communicated quite clearly why we had to take that
step (see above). But not everybody reacts in a rational way
- and they don't have to. It is impossible to stay popular
with everyone when important steps for the survival of a
company have to be taken. It is a fact that from a thousand
visitors about 998 exclusively use our free services. Only
comparatively few order a product or a subscription. It is
in the nature of the Internet to allow such a generous service,
and it provides indeed a lot of pleasure to be able to offer
it. But if there is only a minor change in the free services,
it concerns many visitors, and some of them react irrationally.
But these are, strictly speaking, not our customers, they are
users of the free services. It would not be in their interest
if
the whole company had to close down due to a lack of income.
But the individual users do not look at it from this perspective,
and they are probably not interested in it either. Saturn is
very strong in my birth chart, and I can stand by unpopular
measures if they are necessary.

"There
will be a great selection of free services in the future,
we are not planning to restrict any of the services
we offer today."

Alois Treindl:
What a question! There will be a great selection of free services
in the future, we are not planning to restrict any of the
services we offer today. We really enjoy being able to
offer
them, and we get a lot of energy back from our enthusiastic
visitors. I could not imagine to live without this
wonderful forum for worldwide free astrological services.

We
have many good ideas about how to stimulate the sales of our
paid horoscopes in the near future. The recent recession
has inspired our creativity and soon people will be able
to see the results on www.astro.com. A crisis often brings
out new ideas and injects new energy. We are
very positive
about
the future.
Many visitors of www.astro.com are under the impression that
there is a huge company behind the website, with its professional
appearance, all the languages and services. But in reality,
we are a small firm, a small creative enterprise with a
large impact worldwide. By the way, we do have a great team
of motivated staff who do a very good job with great enthusiasm.

AstroWiki
by Astrodienst is a free encyclopedia of astrology. It collects the knowledge
of the astrological community and makes it available to everybody. The Wiki`s
cadre consists of two astrological lexica.

As one of the largest astrology portals WWW.ASTRO.COM offers a lot of free features on the subject. With high-quality horoscope interpretations by the world's leading astrologers Liz Greene, Robert Hand and other authors, many free horoscopes and extensive information on astrology for beginners and professionals, www.astro.com is the first address for astrology on the web.